at
the last end of it, if he proposes to be accepted upon the ground of
_obedience_. "I testify," says St. Paul, "to every man that is
circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the _whole_ law" (Gal. v. 3). The
whole, or none, is the just and inexorable rule which law lays down in
the matter of justification. If any subject of the Divine government can
show a clean record, from the beginning to the end of his existence, the
statute says to him, "Well done," and gives him the reward which he has
earned. And it gives it to him not as a matter of grace, but of debt. The
law never makes a present of wages. It never pays out wages, until they
are earned,---fairly and fully earned. But when a perfect obedience from
first to last is rendered to its claims, the compensation follows as
matter of debt. The law, in this instance, is itself brought under
obligation. It owes a reward to the perfectly obedient subject of law,
and it considers itself his debtor until it is paid. "Now to him that
worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. If it be of
works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work" (Rom.
iv. 4; xi. 6).

But, on the other hand, law is equally exact and inflexible, in case the
work has not been performed. It will not give eternal life to a soul that
has sinned ten years, and then perfectly obeyed ten years,--supposing
that there is any such soul. The obedience, as we have remarked, must run
parallel with the _entire_ existence, in order to be a ground, of
justification. Infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old age, and then the
whole immortality that succeeds, must all be unintermittently sinless and
holy, in order to make eternal life a matter of debt. Justice is as exact
and punctilious upon this side, as it is upon the other. We have seen,
that when a perfect obedience has been rendered, justice will not palm
off the wages that are due as if they were some gracious gift; and on the
other hand, when a perfect obedience has not been rendered, it will not
be cajoled into the bestowment of wages as if they had been earned. There
is no principle that is so intelligent, so upright, and so exact, as
justice; and no creature can expect either to warp it, or to circumvent
it.

In the light of these remarks, it is evident that it is _too late_ for a
sinner to avail himself of the method of salvation by works. For, that
method requires that sinless obedience begin at the beginning of his
existence,